Seoul Interval
by trapper-john-fics
Summary: A hidden scene in between Hawkeye and Trapper's meeting with the corrupt colonel, and crashing General Mitchell's Press conference during The Incubator episode. Hawkeye and Trapper confess some secrets to each other.


"You know, I have a feelin' that you'd strike out with girls less if you'd take it a bit slower," said Trapper, halfway into his second beer and feeling pleasantly buzzed despite the grand total of five resounding rejections he'd received in the bar downstairs.

"Whaddya mean?"

"Well," he said, addressing the clouds of steam billowing out of the bathroom, "Droppin' to your knees and proposin' in the middle of a crowded bar is a good way to get a drink in your face. Which you did."

"Very true. And let's not forget the plate of hors d'oeuvres." The shower cut off with a squeak and a gurgle, and Hawkeye came strolling out of the bathroom, dressed in his khaki skivvies with a towel draped over his head.

"How could I? You're lucky this room had a shower."

Laughing, Hawkeye bent over and began to towel his hair dry, his shoulder blades sticking out of his back like tiny wings. "Look, how could I have known that the bartender was her husband? How many couples do you know that bartend together?"

Trapper merely shook his head and took another sip of beer.

"Besides, nothing stings so much as the fact that I never got a yes or a no," said Hawkeye, straightening up and shaking the wet hair out of his face. "How am I supposed to move on?"

"Drown your sorrows," suggested Trapper, holding out a beer. "I can barely feel the sting from that geisha girl who slapped me anymore."

"Nah, I want to be sharp for General Mitchell," said Hawkeye, pulling on his silk hapi robe. "Besides, what happened to all that jazz this morning about going off drinking?"

"That was your jazz," he said, watching as Hawkeye went to the open window and stuck his face out like a dog in a car, enjoying the breeze from the second story. "Besides, it's afternoon now, and I'm bored. Unless you've got an activity in mind."

Hawkeye drew in a deep breath of air and promptly coughed as he caught a waft of smoke from the eatery next door. Still hacking, he made his way over to Trapper's bed and sat down, banging a fist against his chest. "The girls and the bar _were_ my planned activity," he said between coughs. "It's not my fault they fell through."

"Not your fault? Hawk, she thought you were tryin' to get a look up her skirt. Not your fault, my ass."

The springs creaked as Hawkeye groaned and threw himself backwards onto the bed, revealing a broad strip of his pale chest as his robe came apart at the lapels. "I mean, maybe I was, maybe I wasn't. Who are you to judge me?"

"No one! I'm as deviant as the next guy."

Hawkeye giggled. "You, a deviant?"

"Alright, so I'm just an adulterer, but you don't even have a wife to cheat on. What makes you so bad?"

The bed shook as Hawkeye only laughed in reply.

Shaking his head, Trapper settled further back into the odd smelling pillows and unbuttoned his starchy shirt. His Class A's still smelled like the inside of his footlocker, and the spritzing of cheap cologne he'd sprayed on the cuffs didn't help much. With Hawkeye already in his robe, it didn't make sense to keep them on, so he wriggled his way out of the stiff shirt and threw it on the floor with Hawkeye's ruined clothes.

"It'd be better with music," teased Hawkeye, and began an obnoxious rendition of the trumpet section from Duke Ellington's In A Sentimental Mood.

"Alright, knock it off," said Trapper, shoving him closer to the other side of the bed. "Everything else is staying on."

"A pity for me." Unfazed, Hawkeye crawled back over to him and lay down on his back, pillowing his head on his laced fingers.

"I'm sure."

"Can I help it if I fall for the athletic types?" asked Hawkeye with a mock tone of indignance.

"Guess not." He rolled his eyes as Hawkeye sighed, feigning disappointment. "Sometimes I wonder about you, ya know?" he said, wincing as one of Hawkeye's sharp elbows jabbed him in the shoulder. There was no hostility in the statement; at worst, it was a mild jab, but Hawkeye stilled all the same, losing some of his smile.

"What do you mean?"

Trapper frowned and sat up, alarmed at the almost fearful tone of his friend's voice. "Aw, nothing, Hawk. I was just joking."

"Were you?" asked Hawkeye, pulling his robe closed with a trace of self consciousness.

"Course I was," he assured, twisting around to face him. Hawkeye was still laying back, his robe hiked up over his knees and his hands behind his head, but it was painfully obvious he was faking his relaxed attitude. "Look, you make jokes, and I make jokes about the jokes. I wasn't tryin' to scare ya or anythin', I'm not Frank."

"Jokes," repeated Hawkeye, eyes fixed on the ceiling. "Right. Sorry I just - you've never made a comment before. Usually just some crack about which of us is Fred or Ginger."

Confused as to how the conversation had taken such a turn, but concerned all the same, Trapper shrugged. "Alright, then I won't bring it up again. I didn't realize it was a sore spot for ya."

"It's not."

"Well, okay then. I'll accept that."

"Accept what?"

"I dunno!" exclaimed Trapper, rubbing the back of his neck. "Jesus, I dunno! I was just makin' an observation."

Muttering to himself, Hawkeye rolled off the bed. "So it wasn't a joke," he said, stooping to gather his clothes off the floor. "It was an _observation_."

"I dunno _what_ I said anymore with you twisting' my words around like that," grumbled Trapper, addressing Hawkeye's back as he stomped into the bathroom to try and scrub some of the food out of his clothes. "Look, Hawk, I'm sorry. You're always makin' jokes like that, so I just - I just -"

"What? You assumed?" A wave of tap water soaked the front of Hawkeye's robe as he slammed his jacket into the sink with unusual force.

"I didn't assume anythin', I was just teasin' you!"

"That's a hell of a thing to tease me about, what with all the blue tickets home going around lately!"

"Jesus," Trapper repeated, shaking his head. He watched Hawkeye furiously scrub his clothes for a while, his face in the bathroom mirror an odd mixture of pale white and angry red patches high up on his cheekbones. At first, he had almost hoped that the situation would end, that Hawkeye would laugh and realize it was a joke, a jive, a little poke at his subversive, often promiscuous sense of humor, but the moment didn't come. Hawkeye continued to wash his stained jacket like it had offended him, sending up splashes of steaming hot water. "Hawkeye, leave that for a second," he said at last, patting the blankets next to him. "C'mere."

Caught for a moment between his anger and his distrust, Hawkeye hesitated momentarily at the sink before returning to the bed. He sank down on the opposite side, a few feet away from Trapper, and crossed his arms, waiting. The clock on the wall, far too loud for such a small hotel room, marked the time slipping away from them; they were due to crash General Mitchell's press conference in less than half an hour.

"Listen," said Trapper, ignoring the clock as well as Hawkey's glare, "I don't know what's got you so upset. I don't know if you're offended, scared of me, or worried I'm gonna find somethin' out that I shouldn't. But whatever it is, I'd like you to tell me what's eatin' you."

Hawkeye said nothing, only stared at his knees with a humiliated, trapped expression.

"Did ya think I was askin' you seriously?"

Still, silence, and a shaking hand twisting the cord of his robe.

"Alright, so don't talk. But listen, if it means anythin' at all to you, I'm not - I'm not a bigot. I'm not sayin' anythin' about ya, and I'm not makin' any assumptions, but I wouldn't make any judgments. Okay?" He waited for a minute before pressing gently, "Hawk?"

The clock seemed to tick more loudly than ever. Hawkeye let out a long sigh, and finally met Trapper's gaze with a bitter smile. "Are you asking if I'm a friend of Dorothy's, Trapper?"

"Yes," he said, surprising himself. He almost hated himself for answering honestly, for adding to Hawkeye's discomfort, but it was the truth. He'd wanted to know for a long time, wanted to know if there was anything behind those playful dances in their tent, the flirtatious compliments that usually went to the nurses or Hotlips, or those provocative winks and nudges and almost, near-miss bits of intimacy Hawkeye shared with him.

The second hand made two rotations around the clock during Hawkeye's silence, every second echoing like distant gunfire. Finally, he shook his head. "Sorry, Trapper, but I'd need a hell of an insurance plan before I admitted something like that."

"You would, huh?"

He shrugged unhappily. "You're my best friend. I'd trust you with my life, and I may have to before this war is through with us. But you can't ask me to tell you something like that. Not with Truman breathing down my neck."

Trapper looked at Hawkeye's tortured, anxious face, at the nervous, trembling hands picking apart the cuffs of his robe, and at his pale, vulnerable knees. He saw the dread in his eyes, the guarded, desperate hope, and that despite the fear in his voice, despite the the rapid rise and fall of his chest, Hawkeye was still, ever so slightly, leaning towards him.

He drew a deep, quick breath, reached out, and combed his fingers through Hawkeye's black hair, resting his palm against his cheek. He only had a moment to appreciate how soft his hair was; the wide, surprised, delightful blue of Hawkeye's eyes, and the way one side of his mouth was already curving upwards in an amazed smile, before he was leaning in and pressing a quick, gentle kiss to Hawkeye's lips. He lingered for the barest, most heady second of time before pulling away.

"There," he said, feeling slightly out of breath. "There's your insurance plan."

"You have a real way of twisting my arm," breathed Hawkeye, and the softness of his voice, combined with the awkward schoolboy smile he was giving him, made Trapper's heart soar. "You knew? You - you _are -?_ "

"You think I'd understand what friend of Dorothy means if I wasn't?" asked Trapper, still reeling, but grinning nonetheless.

"But you're _married,_ you have _kids,_ I thought -"

"There's a lotta ways to be," he said. It had become his favorite, most concise excuse. "And you still haven't answered my question."

"Does saying I want to kiss you again answer it?"

Chuckling, Trapper caught his hands as Hawkeye sprang towards him and held him off for a moment, fixing him with a serious look. "Now I could get in a lotta trouble, too. I gotta make sure that you -"

"Yes, I am!" Hawkeye exclaimed, "What kind of a question is that?"

"You didn't even hear the question!"

"Was it about my sexual orientation?"

"No, actually, I feel like that's pretty obvious at this point," said Trapper, experiencing a sudden flutter of apprehension in his belly. "I was gonna ask if you - well - if you… like me too?"

Exhaling heavily, Hawkeye bit his lip and blushed. "Truthfully? I've had a crush on you from day one."

Hawkeye was still gripping his hands tightly, pushing back against him even as Trapper struggled to sit up straight. Finally, he gave into the pressure and let Hawkeye pin him down with another, less delicate kiss.

"Get off, Casanova," he grunted beneath him, fighting the urge to finish the job gravity was doing of pulling Hawkeye's too-large robe off his shoulders. "We got a general to visit."

"He's not invited," murmured Hawkeye, and groaned in exasperation as Trapper pushed him off. "Aw, come on!"

"Nope," said Trapper, pulling his khaki shirt on. "We got a big day ahead of us. Get your shirt on, but uh, let's leave the jackets. Well fit in better with the press."

There was another, louder creak of bedsprings as Hawkeye tumbled off the bed and onto the floor with a dramatic sigh. "Fine. We'll finish this conversation later."

"Later," agreed Trapper, and tossed him his clothes.

His heart was beating fast when they left the hotel, bumping elbows and trading secret smiles. The drive to the press conference seemed to go by in a flash, leaving them giddy and feeling half-drunk on sudden, unexpected happiness. And when Hawkeye answered the question for him, the question he'd been asking himself for months - _are you two together?_ \- his heart nearly stopped with joy. _In all kinds of weather, huh?_ he asked when they were finally free from the MP's, and Hawkeye only grinned and squeezed his hand.


End file.
